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John Farrell always knew he wanted to manage Red Sox: Griffin

Former Blue Jays manager never made any secret of his desire to return to Boston. And in hindsight, the Jays would have been better to let him go a year ago.

Former Jays manager John Farrell dons a Red Sox cap during a Fenway Park news conference Tuesday introducing him as the 46th skipper in the club's 112-year history. (Charles Krupa / The Associated Press)

In October 2010, John Farrell was pitching coach of the Red Sox. At the time, he was being promoted heavily by his friend and manager Terry Francona as a future major-league skipper. Farrell interviewed successfully with the Blue Jays and was given a three-year contract. He swore that he believed in GM Alex Anthopoulos and wanted to be here when they won a World Series.

In October 2011, Farrell was one year in as manager of the Jays when the Red Sox chose to make a scapegoat of Francona, blaming him for a late-season collapse and for discipline problems inside the clubhouse that became headlines. Sox management also let it be known through the media that Farrell was their next choice to manage. So it was that just 12 months after joining the Jays, the native of the Jersey Shore let it be known he was ready to leave.

Fast forward to October 2012. After another disastrous season in which injuries combined with poor play and bad pitching, the Red Sox fired manager Bobby Valentine. Even before they let Bobby V. go, Sox management had again let it be known through the media in September that Farrell was, once again, their next choice to manage. With one year remaining on his Jays contract and with the team losing more games in each of his two seasons than the year before, Farrell talked his way out of town. Is that tampering? Not strictly, but the Jays must be boiling.

In defending his departure at a news conference in Boston, Farrell said that when he spoke to Anthopoulos in 2011 about his desire to return to Boston, Anthopoulos understood. Farrell claimed the GM told him then that if the Expos were still around and had called him, Anthopoulos would have felt the same desire to return to Montreal.

Talk about throwing your former boss under a double-decker bus. Here is the 35-year-old Anthopoulos, a native of Montreal, described to Jays fans as a reluctant resident of Toronto by a guy who tried for two straight years to ramp up onto I-90 and the Massachusetts Turnpike to Fenway.

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“I think the analogy got a little mixed up with the Expos, because they no longer exist,” Anthopoulos responded quickly after Farrell’s televised news conference.

“I think the analogy I used (in conversation with Farrell in 2011) was if I had left in 2009 as an AGM to go to an American League East team and all of a sudden Toronto became available — and my wife is from here and I have family, friends and all kinds of ties to the organization — it’s understandable that I would feel a connection to the organization. Not to say I would leave at all. I’m just saying I understand there’s ties to the organization. It doesn’t mean I agree or don’t agree or it’s right or wrong.”

That’s a far different meaning, if that’s the conversation Anthopoulos had with Farrell. Fact is, if Farrell was so dead set on finally rejoining the Red Sox, maybe the Jays should have let him go after his first season and gone in another direction. The optics, however, would have looked even worse for the organization and for the young GM at that time than they do now after a 73-win season.

So was 2012 a wasted season in terms of having Farrell stay on as manager after his request to leave town was denied by a new club policy? That question must be asked, because one of the things Farrell emphasized in Boston was he now felt “the need to be more aggressive in player moves.”

Apparently, Farrell felt that some roster moves this season were made without enough of his input. Many moves stemmed from injuries and the replacement moves that had to be made quickly because of the distance to Triple-A Las Vegas. Apparently the roster moves were not always what he would have done, but he did not always let his feelings be known. He said he is going to change.

Now let me get this straight. This is a 50-year-old manager with a year left on his contract and a desire to win a World Series in Toronto. He would feel shy about offering input to his 35-year-old boss? Well, maybe, if subconsciously he was viewing the meltdown of Bobby Valentine in Boston, thinking that by 2013 a Jays roster may not be one of his concerns. That’s subconsciously of course, not suggesting that any 2012 decision-making may have been compromised by his desire to leave.

On Tuesday, Anthopoulos reflected on the intense two-day meeting the men had immediately following the season, before the decision was made to let Farrell go to Boston. Anthopoulos believed he was speaking to the Jays’ 2013 manager, but the meeting only created in Farrell a new-found desire to participate in the roster process — Boston’s.

“We talked about everything,” Anthopoulos said. “We went through the whole season, the transactions and so on. John was involved in all of them (as they happened). Before we did anything I would always talk to him: ‘Are you good with this? Any concerns? Do you feel strongly?’ and so on.

“When we talked there were times maybe he felt more strongly about certain things, but he didn’t convey them to me at the time, how strongly he felt. That’s something he said, you know, ‘In hindsight, I probably needed to be a little more assertive if I felt strongly about something.’

“We would talk about things all the time. It’s one thing to discuss things and throw ideas back and forth, but what I expressed to him was if you really have passion for a certain idea, trade, transaction, whatever, you need to convey that passion to me and he said that was something he was going to take away from it and learn from it and he would get better at it.”

Farrell will now get better at participating in those personnel decisions in Boston with a new GM. As Anthopoulos said of Farrell’s dream job: “I understand there’s ties to the organization. It doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong.” Obviously some people knew of Farrell’s dream. As the season wound down, did that knowledge weaken the Jays’ coaching staff and clubhouse?

In hindsight, despite the bad optics, it would have been better to let him go a year ago.

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